Ahh Facebook. Only five years old and the definition of an internet heavy-hitter. Like a few other stalwarts, Facebook has created (or transformed) a niche of the internet whilst (like that word) singularly dominating competition: Amazon, shopping; Youtube, video; Wikipedia, encyclopedia; Google, (choose one); Facebook- social networking.I held-out through my senior year of high-school until I received my freshman-year roommate assignment in the mail. For fear of social speculation, I hurriedly and eagerly created an account. The viral effect began; collecting 'friends', 'tags', 'pokes', 'events' as Facebook became a constant in many peoples lives.
Since 2005, Facebook has steadily and thoroughly enrolled the majority of college students, high-school students and the general populace onto it's digital socialization platform. In (a fast) four years, Facebook currently boasts 200,000,000 users. During Facebook's reign, the platform has changed in appearance, functionality and availability. Yet, Facebook is ubiquitous, universal in some senses.
If Facebook is here to stay, here is critique, question and imagination, in approximately increasing scope:
1) Too many suggestions for (uncessesary) pages. I'm sure other people have noticed the absurd volume of 'pages' Facebook 'suggests' to you in the top right of the home screen. At first I believed some pages were justified, Barack Obama, Kanye West, etc. These allowed users to claim allegiance. Now though, I've seen pages for hugging, cities, old TV shows, and other more innane ones. These are scarily turning into groups, where people unwittingly stockpile unnecessary pages diluting overall meaning. Some regulation by Facebook would go a long way in controlling this traffic.
2) Lack of randomness of (six) friends display in profile. There is seemingly a glitch that for any given visit, the six friends (of yours) displayed on your profile page (when under wall and info) seem fixed. This seems counter-intuitive to the connecting power of Facebook. An either completely random, or (better yet) a more intelligently dictated display of friends would benefit the user (at least not bore them!)
3) Protection from applications. Facebook hasn't been the same since it opened it's doors to third party developers. We all know the annoying spam like quality of invasive applications (holding your 'newsfeed' hostage, clutter some notifications, etc.) . Facebook could serve to maintain universal applications such as calenders, 'bookshelves' and other media (music, movies) connecting services, causes, games, etc. Presently, two users have to each posses an application to allow cross-communication. With Facebook universal applications, all users would immediately be connected with peers.
4) More user freedom and choices. Taking ques from Gmail, Blogger (both Google obviously), and Myspace (Facebook's disease ridden relative), Facebook users should be able to personally tailor their Facebook experience. From skins, to content, features and layout, users' ability to customize their pages would make Facebook even more accessible and user friendly (a lot of potential here, depending on how much control they cede).
(warning, the next two points completely go off the deep end)
5) Casual Convergence. What I mean by casual convergence isn't casual at all. What I'm asking for could be poorly described as the union of a person's 'casual' computing uses. Imagine instead of toggling between your e-mail, Facebook, internet surfing, media (music, movies, books, TV), bookkeeping, Microsoft Office tasks (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.), data, cell-phone, (video) chat/messaging, they all existed and originated from a single source. Cloud computing is suggestive; I imagine this convergence can only happen in the ether, and Facebook is a natural candidate for the coordinating and organizing necessary. Users already have an association with their profile. All other applications could hub off Facebook; e-mailing, chatting, media usage(consuming, sharing, etc.), personal shopping, accounting, etc. all could be accessed within or in conjunction with a users page. However, the most powerful forces in the computing world would have to achieve countless seemingly unimaginable technical and business collaborations - Windows, Google, Facebook, Blackberry, etc. to achieve synchronicity.
6) Enders Game/ The Matrix/ 1984 (or official convergence). A continuation of the above thought results in people's official legal identity being administered through the internet. Everything from birth, health, education, correspondences, relationships, finances, property and all else that occurs in the governmental realm would be maintained on the internet by the powers that may be for every person. Naturally, the structure of Facebook, individual profiles with associated peers, and stores of information, could (foreseeable-y) service this vast administrative task. Like 5) above though, an unfathomable international body superseding nations and businesses would be necessary to achieve this unbelievable feat. Yet, The implications of a global internet-administered society may be able to transcend the simplest and most massive ills; poverty, health, security, and the global inefficiency of competing inefficient bureaucracies (not usually considered, we're probably all wasting a lot of human power).
Wow. Didn't expect it to go there. But, basically I think we're stuck with technology for better or for worse. Who's to say how or how much technologies will compile and combine in our futures.
Consider this (tip of the iceberg) fact though, Honest application of Moore's Law of Accelerating Returns and further: "Accelerating Change, (must credit Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near, above), our world is and will continue to change faster and faster (of exponential order). If you think the elderly have trouble recognizing today, you try and imagine the next century (although Kurzweil claims most of us will live forever!).Thoughts, responses? I'm curious.
APF
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